"You've got to compete against him and be as nasty as he is," said Knicks coach Jeff Van Gundy. "Everytime you block him out, he elbows a guy in the face. I'm not calling him dirty. He's an aggressive, physical player. He does whatever it takes."

"They're down there bitching and moaning, saying all those things to the referees," said Patrick Ewing of Jackson and his assistants, "and (Jim Cleamons) was talking crap to me. That's the Bulls. They get away with everything. Phil is crying to the refs everytime down the court."

And so this feud that goes far beyond basketball teams, but to cities and citizens, to who is bigger, who is smarter and who is really No. 1, will continue at Madison Square Garden Saturday when the Bulls play the Knicks.

It's a battle between a team that talks trash and the city that piles up its trash.

Whose momma?

Yo' momma.

"Neither team, especially in this series, wants to give the other team any credit," said Van Gundy, whose team is down 2-0 in the best-of-seven series. "They say we're not a factor and they're just missing shots. We say the same thing."

If it seems odd that the Knicks are doing all the talking, it's because the Bulls have done most of their trash talking on the court, rather than to the press.

"I don't know if there can be much more animosity between two teams," noted Van Gundy, who earlier in the series condemned Bulls coach Phil Jackson as unprofessional for talking about being interested in the Knicks job just after Van Gundy replaced Don Nelson.

"People who weren't raised as coaches react in different ways," said Van Gundy, whose father has been a college basketball coach for more than 30 years. "They speculate and use it for bargaining position and stuff like that. People in the coaching profession raised by coaches react in predictable fashion. They know proper protocol."

And Van Gundy also suggested, without saying it directly, that it's a lot different when you're coaching Michael Jordan instead of playing against him.

"But when you have No. 23 on your team, everything is good, everything works out well.

"I think the dislike comes from playing against a team time and again over a period of time. In time a rivalry develops and a natural feeling of animosity is built up. One team is going to win and one team is going to lose. We won the last series we played, they won the previous three or four or whatever.

"They're very good. They carry themselves with an air of confidence, arrogance. And while we have respect for them, we will not be deferential to them at all.

"We believe we can win. It's up to us to do the things on the floor that are necessary to win."

There will be strategy adjustments as the Knicks try to get Luc Longley in foul trouble, make the Bulls double-team to open perimeter shooters such as John Starks or to let Ewing dominate at the basket.

Now that we have all that straight, who could hate Scottie Pippen?

Pippen became a star without the benefit of big advertising campaigns or NBA publicity. And what a graceful player, choreographing his own ballet in the way he glides across that 94-by-50-foot dance floor.

The Knicks could hate Scottie Pippen.

"With the exception of Michael," said Derek Harper of Pippen, "late in the game, nobody else seems to want the ball unless it's a big lead."